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The  War  and  the 

Nation’s  Larger  Call 
to  World  Evangelism 


Address 

delivered  by 

Robert  E.  Speer, 

Secretary  of  the  Presbyterian  Board  of  Foreign  Missions, 
before  the  Federal  Council  of  Churches, 
Washington,  D.  C., 

May  9,  1917. 


The  Board  of  Foreign  Missions 

o 

of  the 

Presbyterian  Church 

in  the  U.  S.  A. 

156  Fifth  Avenue,  New  York 


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Send  to  Literature  Department, 
Board  of  Foreign  Missions, 
156  Fifth  Avenue, 

New  York, 


For 

Extra  number  of  ‘‘The  War  and  the  Nation’s 
Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism” 

For 

The  War  Bulletin — “The  World  War  and 
Presbyterian  Foreign  Missions” 

For 

‘The  War  Test” — “Tlf^Presbyterian  Mis- 


U 

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sionary  in  the  War  Zone”^, 


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The  War  and  the  Nation’s 
Larger  Call  to 
World  Evangelism 

By  Robert  E.  Speer 

❖ 

WHEN  the  war  began  we  saw  in  the  nations 
immediately  involved,  and  in  some  smaller 
measure  in  our  own  land,  an  illustration  of  the  fact 
that  in  time  of  emergency  or  strain  man  instinctively 
contracts  and  conserves  his  resources,  while  God 
releases  and  enlarges  his.  That  is  a  fact  of  no  little 
significance  in  its  bearing  upon  our  thought  with 
regard  both  to  the  being  and  to  the  character  of  God. 
And  now  that  we  also  have  been  drawn  into  this  great 
struggle,  we  are  seeing  among  ourselves  the  illustra¬ 
tion  of  this  same  fact  in  a  far  more  vivid  way. 

Questions  have  been  at  once  raised  on  every  side 
as  to  whether  some  of  our  activities  must  not  be 
abridged,  whether,  in  the  interest  of  achieving  the 
great  task  that  is  now  clearly  paramount,  other  things 
must  not  be  sacrificed.  Very  naturally  these  ques¬ 
tions  will  arise  most  insistently  with  regard  to  those 
interests  that  seem  most  remote — our  activities  and 
relationships  among  distant  peoples.  Are  we  to  acqui¬ 
esce  in  the  idea  that  these  must  be  held  now  in 


Page  four] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


abeyance  for  a  while,  that  the  immediate  purposes  of 
the  nation  will  require  every  energy  and  resource, 
and  that  the  Christian  church,  for  the  time  being  at 
least,  must  postpone  her  work  of  larger  world 
evangelization  ? 

The  attitude  which  the  churches  will  take  on  this 
question  will  be  largely  determined  by  the  attitude 
which  we  take,  and  which  other  gatherings  of  men  like 
ours  also  will  be  taking,  across  our  land,  within  the 
next  few  weeks.  If  our  position  is  weak  and  falter¬ 
ing,  if  our  own  conviction  is  not  clear  and  solidly 
grounded,  we  shall  see  within  the  next  few  months  the 
collapse  of  some  of  our  most  important  Christian 
activities,  and  shall  have  in  subsequent  years  slowly 
to  recover  ground  that  in  these  days,  in  our  negligence 
and  carelessness,  we  had  surrendered. 

Are  we  prepared  this  morning  deliberately  to 
commit  ourselves  to  the  position  taken  in  the  Mes¬ 
sage  of  the  Federal  Council  to  the  churches,  that 
there  must  be  no  curtailment  whatever  of  the  activities 
or  ministries  of  the  Christian  church?  What  I  have 
to  say  is  in  support  of  the  position,  not  only  that  there 
should  be  no  such  curtailment,  but  that  we  are  to  hear 
and  to  respond  to  what  the  topic  assigned  to  me  de¬ 
scribes  as  the  larger  call  of  the  war  and  the  nation  to 
the  church  in  its  task  of  world  evangelization. 

We  have  no  need  to  be  affrighted  in  such  a  situa¬ 
tion  as  this.  It  is  such  an  easy  thing  to  lose  the  right 
perspective,  to  be  intimidated  by  what  is  contem- 
porarv.  not  to  see  things  in  their  large  proportions,  and 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


[Page  live 


not  to  draw,  as  we  ought  clearly  to  draw  in  this  hour, 
the  true  lessons  of  the  past.  Great  national  crises 
have  not  been  deemed  sufficient  in  the  past  to  justify 
the  extinction  of  the  church’s  missionary  activities. 
The  great  missionary  organizations  of  Europe  grew 
up  in  times  of  national  strain,  greater  and  more  critical 
even  than  those  we  face  to-day.  The  first  American 
missionaries,  including  Adoniram  Judson,  went  out 
during  the  War  of  1812.  When  the  Civil  War  broke 
upon  our  nation,  when  every  energy  and  resource  of 
a  people  was  enlisted  in  a  great  life  and  death  strug¬ 
gle,  even  then  the  heart  of  the  nation  in  the  Christian 
church  was  not  stifled  nor  blunted  in  its  conscious¬ 
ness  of  missionary  obligation.  There  are  some  here 
who  will  recall  the  facts  of  which  our  friend.  Dr. 
Houston,  was  speaking  in  a  noble  address  in  1888, 
when  he  referred  to  the  origin  of  the  missionary  work 
in  his  own  church  in  the  Southern  states:  “When  in 
that  day,”  said  he,  “she  found  herself  girt  about  as 
with  a  wall  of  fire,  when  no  missionary  had  it  in  his 
power  to  go  forth  from  her  bosom  to  the  regions 
beyond,  the  first  General  Assembly  put  on  record  the 
solemn  declaration  that,  as  this  church  now  unfurled 
her  banner  to  the  world,  she  desired  deliberately  and 
distinctlv  to  inscribe  on  it,  in  immediate  connection 
with  the  headship  of  her  Lord,  his  last  command,  ‘Go 
ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gospel  to  every 
creature,’  regarding  this  as  the  great  end  of  her  organi¬ 
zation,  and  obedience  to  it  as  the  indispensable  condi¬ 
tion  of  her  Lord’s  promised  presence.”  And  the 


Page  six] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


spirit  that  found  expression  in  that  first  General 
Assembly  of  the  Southern  Presbyterian  Church,  was 
the  spirit  that  was  reigning  in  all  the  churches  of  the 
nation,  North  and  South,  during  the  days  of  the  Civil 
War. 

I  made  a  study  not  long  ago  of  the  reports  of  one 
of  the  foreign  mission  boards  for  the  four  years  of 
the  Civil  War,  to  find  out  whether  our  fathers  had  felt 
that  they  were  justified  in  those  days  of  crisis  in  cur¬ 
tailing  the  church’s  work  of  world  evangelization. 
Not  so.  This  deliverance  of  one  church  would  be 
found,  I  think,  characteristic  of  all :  “New  missions 
are  needed.  Shall  they  be  established?  Is  it 
inquired,  where  are  the  means?  We  answer,  they  are 
in  the  hands  of  the  Christians,  who  are  God’s  stew¬ 
ards.  Let  a  proper  demand  be  made.  Let  this 
Assembly  call  on  the  churches,  and  that  call  will  be 
answered.  The  response  will  come  in  the  spirit  of 
that  consecration  in  which  all  God’s  people  have  laid 
themselves  and  their  all  upon  his  altar.”  It  would  be 
found  in  the  case  of  many  of  our  denominational  mis¬ 
sionary  agencies  that  they  emerged  from  the  Civil 
War  with  enlarged  contributions  from  the  churches. 
One  representative  board  testified  that  it  had  to  with¬ 
draw  not  a  single  missionary,  to  close  not  a  single 
mission  field,  to  withhold  not  a  single  foreign  mission¬ 
ary  who  had  been  prepared  to  go  out.  And,  though 
during  those  last  days,  when  our  exchange  was  worth 
only  fifty  cents  on  the  dollar  abroad,  dark  clouds  over¬ 
hung  our  missionary  operations,  not  one  of  our  Ameri- 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


[Page  seven 


can  churches  felt  that  it  was  justified  in  drawing  back 
from  its  world  task. 

The  great  churches  in  the  nations  that  have  been 
at  war  the  last  three  years,  though  they  have  borne 
heavy  burdens,  heavier  burdens,  God  grant,  than  we 
may  be  called  upon  to  carry,  have  with  few  exceptions 
not  curtailed,  and  without  exception  have  not  with¬ 
drawn,  their  foreign  missionary  undertakings.  The 
London  Missionary  Society  last  year  cleared  off  a 
large  indebtedness  and  carried  forward  its  work  with¬ 
out  diminution.  The  Wesleyan  Society  received  the 
largest  income  that  it  has  ever  received  in  its  entire 
history.  The  English  Baptist  Society  closed  its  fiscal 
year  without  a  deficit.  The  Methodist  Church  in 
Canada  had  a  larger  income  than  it  had  ever  had  in 
any  year  of  peace.  Adding  all  together  the  missionary 
activities  of  Great  Britain,  the  income  of  the  mission¬ 
ary  societies  for  the  year  ending  March  31,  1916, 
exceeded  considerably  the  income  of  the  y-ear  before 
the  war. 

When  we  turn  to  think  of  what  we  have  been 
doing,  of  what  it  is  that  some  are  proposing  that  we 
shall  need  now  to  abridge,  is  it  possible  for  us  to  main¬ 
tain  an  attitude  of  timidity?  One  hundred  and  thirty 
American  missionary  societies  last  year  gave 
$24,688,000-— an  average  of  less  than  one  dollar  per 
capita  for  the  Protestant  membership  of  the  churches 
in  the  United  States.  Is  it  contended  by  any  one  that 
we  are  to  be  so  reduced  that  our  Protestant  church- 
membership  cannot  contribute  one  dollar  per  annum 


Page  eight] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


per  capita  to  maintain  these  undertakings  abroad? 
We  can  pay  all  our  taxes  and  do  all  our  other  duties 
and  perform  this  one  also  with  no  mentionable 
sacrifice. 

Have  the  principles  changed  on  which  the  under¬ 
taking  rests,  or  have  the  world  facts  that  we  face  been 
altered  by  new  conditions  that  have  now  arisen,  ex¬ 
cept  to  be  made  more  urgent?  The  great  commission 
was  not  given  in  any  time  of  ease,  nor  was  it  condi¬ 
tioned  upon  the  softness  of  obedience  and  accomplish¬ 
ment.  It  was  given  in  far  more  strenuous  and  difficult 
days  even  than  those  that  we  confront  now.  Nothing 
in  spiritual  principle — or  in  the  facts  of  the  world,  as 
we  look  out  upon  them  at  home  or  abroad — justifies 
us  for  one  moment  in  considering  that  it  will  be  nec¬ 
essary  for  us  to  abridge  our  work  of  world  evangeli¬ 
zation. 

Precisely  the  same  principles  hold  with  regard  to 
the  oflering  of  life.  Difficult  problems  are  raised  here 
for  many  men.  Missionaries  at  home  on  furlough, 
missionaries  busy  in  their  work,  young  men  who  are 
under  appointment  or  who  have  planned  to  go  out  to 
missionary  service — the  individual  question  will  face 
each  of  them  as  to  what  his  own  personal  duty  is,  and 
we  may  not  answer  that  question  for  him  by  any 
generalized  statement.  But  we  may  answer  it  for  the 
church  in  her  collective  obligations.  The  church  is 
not  reduced  now  and  she  never  has  been  reduced  to 
such  a  pass  that  she  must  surrender  part  of  her  duty 
in  order  to  be  able  to  do  some  other  part  of  it.  There 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


[Page  nine 


is  life  enough  in  our  nation  and  in  the  church  to-day 
to  make  it  possible  for  them  to  accomplish  all  their 
necessary  undertakings.  Most  of  all  must  we  have 
life  free  to  carry  on  the  great  constructive  and  crea¬ 
tive  tasks,  the  tasks  of  ministry  and  preservation  and 
brotherhood  and  love. 

I  went  last  Saturday  to  see  the  French  steamer 
Espagne  sail  with  several  hundred  young  men  from 
our  colleges  and  universities — Williams,  Dartmouth, 
Princeton,  Northwestern,  and  others  scattered  all  over 
the  land,  young  men  going  off  for  service  in  the  hospi¬ 
tals  or  with  the  Red  Cross,  for  ambulance  work  in 
France,  for  moral  and  religious  service  with  the 
British  armies — several  hundred  of  these  lads,  happy 
in  their  faces,  sober,  but  glad  of  heart,  eager  to  be  off 
about  a  great  unselfish  ministry.  Do  we  mean  to  say 
we  cannot  find  them  with  the  same  will  to  render  a 
yet  farther  service,  a  will  to  go  yet  more  broadly  out 
across  the  world  than  Belgium  and  England  and 
France  and  Mesopotamia? 

During  the  days  of  the  Civil  War,  with  men  as 
with  money,  our  churches  were  able  to  find  those 
whom  they  required.  Boards  reported,  the  second 
year  of  the  war,  that  they  had  the  largest  number  of 
missionary  candidates  they  had  ever  had  in  their  his¬ 
tory,  and,  in  the  very  height  of  the  war,  they  made 
-their  appeal  for  fresh  supplies  of  candidates  on  the 
ground  that  young  men  were  offering  themselves  for 
the  service  of  the  two  causes.  North  and  South,  and 
must  be  not  less  zealous  to  offer  themselves  for  the 


Page  ten] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


cause  that  was  greater  than  all,  the  cause  that  would 
make  all  war  and  conflict  impossible  when  once  it  was 
successfully  carried  through.  Listen  to  the  words  of 
those  days :  ‘^The  promptness,  energy,  and  abundance 
with  which  our  young  men  have  come  forward  during 
the  past  year  to  engage  in  our  armies  for  the  defense 
of  our  nation  should  encourage  Christians  to  pray  for 
that  increased  devotion  of  our  sons  to  the  service  of 
Christ  which  is  demanded  to  provide  ministers  and 
missionaries  to  go  into  the  fields  which  are  now  open 
to  hear  the  gospel.’’  Neither  in  money  nor  in  men  is 
the  Christian  church  to-day  warranted  in  tolerating 
the  idea  of  curtailment  or  abridgement  in  our  work  of 
world  evangelization. 

But  this  is  putting  it  all  very  mildly.  Not  only 
must  there  be  no  contraction  in  this  undertaking,  but 
we  are  called  now  in  these  days  more  vividly  than 
ever  before  to  aim,  distinctly  and  unhesitatingly,  at 
enlargement.  We  are  called  to  this  by  the  fact  that 
the  war  has  transferred  a  larger  measure  of  the  mis¬ 
sionary  obligation  to  America.  Those  of  us  here  this 
evening  who  were  present  at  the  Edinburgh  Mission¬ 
ary  Conference  in  1910  will  remember  the  statement 
by  both  the  German  and  British  delegates  who  were 
there,  in  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  primacy  in 
the  missionary  undertaking  had  even  then  crossed  the 
sea.  That  burden  has  been  immensely  increased  in 
the  years  that  have  gone  by.  It  may  be  that  the  Euro¬ 
pean  churches,  barring  a  few  of  them,  the  Moravians 
and  the  French  Evangelical  churches,  will  not  be 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


[Page  eleven 


largely  dependent  upon  us  for  financial  assistance,  but 
for  many  a  day  they  'will  need  the  life  that  America 
can  give  and  that  America  alone  will  have  to  spare.  I 
imagine  in  no  sections  of  the  world  will  this  new  duty 
be  more  distinct  than  among  the  Mohammedan 
nations.  It  is  a  burden  resting  heavily  upon  many  a 
Christian  conscience  in  Germany  to-day  as  to  how 
the  Mohammedan  problem  is  to  be  dealt  with  by  Ger¬ 
man  churches  in  the  future,  in  view  of  the  alliances 
of  the  present  war.  In  more  regards  than  there  is 
time  to  speak'  of  here,  the  war  has  passed  over  a 
heavier  weight  of  missionary  duty  upon  the  churches 
of  America.  In  the  face  of  that  larger  obligation,  dare 
we  talk  of  standing  still,  still  less  of  drawing  back? 

The  war  has  brought  us  into  new  relations  of  un¬ 
derstanding  and  of  sympathy.  Both  southward  and 
westward  we  have  heavily  increased  our  missionary 
duty.  It  has  been  one  of  the  saddest  facts  of  inter¬ 
national  relationship,  for  the  last  half  generation  at 
least,  that  there  has  been  a  growing  feeling  of  aliena¬ 
tion  between  the  Latin-American  nations  and  the 
Llnited  States,  that  men  like  Manuel  Ugarte,  who  held 
the  devotion  of  many  of  the  young  men  of  Latin 
America,  could  go  up  and  down  those  lands,  like  a 
flame  of  fire,  preaching  the  doctrine  of  deep  isolation 
and  dislike  between  the  Latin-American  nations  and 
their  nearest  neighbors,  who  should  be  their  best 
friends,  north  of  the  Rio  Grande.  At  the  same  time, 
Latin  America’s  devotion  has  been  given  in  unstinted 
measure  for  years  to  France.  And  it  would  seem  to 


Page  twelve] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


be  something  in  the  providence  of  God  that  the  new 
relations  into  which  we  have  been  drawn  with  France 
might  be  the  bridge  over  the  chasm  that  has  opened 
between  us  and  Latin  America,  and  that  our  common 
kinship  and  association  with  France  to-day  might 
reunite  us  who  had  been  so  rapidly  and  bitterly  drift¬ 
ing  apart  here  in  these  Western  lands.  Between  our¬ 
selves  and  Japan  and  China  also  new  understandings 
and  confidences  have  grown  on  account  of  the  war. 
Our  missionary  duty  southward  and  westward  has 
been  multiplied  twofold  at  least  by  the  developments 
of  the  war  abroad. 

The  war  has  increased  our  missionary  obligations 
by  more  deeply  revealing  the  world’s  need  of  the 
gospel  to  heal  its  sin  and  make  it  one.  I  had  with  me, 
in  my  home  on  Sunday,  a  Japanese  friend.  He  had 
been  only  a  few  days  before  to  hear  Dr.  Jefferson 
preach,  and  he  said:  “Mr.  Speer,  I  see  clearly  that  if 
there  is  any  solution  at  all  to  this  great  problem,  there 
is  only  one  solution.  That  is  Christ.  Christ  alone  can 
meet  the  need  of  the  world  and  unite  the  hearts  of 
men.”  We  see  to-day  the  futility  of  every  other 
device  with  which  men  have  dreamed  of  binding  the 
nations  together.  There  is  no  peace  of  Dives.  No 
strands  of  political  or  diplomatic  understanding  can  re¬ 
late  the  nations  inseparably.  We  see  now  that  war 
will  be  done  away  in  Christ  or  it  will  never  be  done 
away  at  all,  and,  seeing  this  so  clearly  to-day,  our  duty 
to  act  upon  this  conviction  is  deepened  and  intensified, 
and  our  missionary  obligation  many-fold  enlarged. 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


[Page  thirteen 


It  is  enlarged,  oh !  how  mightily  it  is  enlarged,  by 
the  visible  and  tragic  need  of  the  world  for  an  incar¬ 
nation  of  a  universal  brotherly  love.  It  will  not  do  to 
talk  and  emotionalize  over  it.  It  will  not  do  to  pass 
resolutions  regarding  it,  nor  to  send  communications 
describing  its  glory,  from  one  nation  to  another.  The 
thing  never  will  be  made  a  reality  except  by  incarna¬ 
tion,  by  such  actual  functionings  of  the  Christian 
church  across  the  world  as  will  utter  visibly  and 
tangibly  to  men  the  spirit  of  a  universal  trust  and  love. 
To  abate  any  of  our  duty  of  missionary  activity,  to 
call  in  the  foreign  missionaries,  to  reduce  the  work 
they  are  doing,  is  to  stultify  our  declaration  that  we 
believe  in  a  world  brotherhood,  or  that  we  would 
penetrate  mankind  with  a  spirit  of  universal  good¬ 
will  and  friendship.  Words  can  never  make  that  real 
to  the  world.  And  if  in  this  day  we  contract  our  acts, 
no  expansion  of  our  speech  will  ever  make  good  our 
betrayal.  We  are  called  by  the  very  facts  of  the  world 
before  us  now  to  enlarge  the  agencies  and  visible 
functionings  of  the  incarnation  of  love  in  flesh  and 
blood  that  goes  out  from  us,  to  express  love  and  kin¬ 
ship  to  the  nations. 

We  need  the  missionary  enterprise  to-day  for  these 
great  purposes  more  than  it  has  ever  been  needed 
in  the  history  of  the  world  before.  We  need  it  as  an 
expression  in  flesh  of  our  conviction  that  humanity  is 
one.  We  need  it  because  it  alone  embodies  a  true 
doctrine  of  race  function  and  race  relationship.  We 
need  it  because  it  appears  to  be  about  the  only  instru- 


Page  fourteen]  LARGER  CalL  TO  WoRLD  EVANGELISM 


mentality  of  Christianity  that  utters  a  clear  and  un¬ 
compromised  super-nationalistic  principle.  How  hard 
is  our  problem  to-day  in  all  these  lands  in  dealing 
with  the  question  of  the  relationship  of  Christianity 
and  the  spirit  of  nationalism !  Has  the  problem  been 
solved  in  any  of  these  nations?  While  we  work  at  it 
let  us  not  abandon  those  great  elements  in  Christianity 
which  rise  above  even  nationality.  Whatever  else  we 
may  surrender,  let  us  not  surrender  the  missionary 
enterprise.  We  can  hold  this  fast  to-day  with  no 
betrayal  of  our  own  nationalistic  loyalty.  And  we 
need  it.  The  new  world  that  is  coming  needs  it.  Let 
us  enlarge  its  functionings,  and  expand  its  activities, 
building  up  increasingly  the  bond  which  we  have  in 
it,  which  carries  love  across  the  gulf  of  race  and 
nation  and  seeks  to  make  mankind  genuinely  one.  We 
need  it  because,  in  these  days  of  strife  and  conflict 
over  all  the  world,  it  seems  to  be  about  the  only 
agency  of  international  service  that  we  possess.  We 
are  beginning  to  learn  in  these  last  few  months  that  it 
is  competent  for  a  nation  to  give  money  away  to  other 
nations.  It  has  been  a  long,  slow  lesson  for  us  to 
learn,  and  maybe  we  shall  forget  it  soon  again.  But 
we  learned  long  ago  and  shall  not  forget  that  we  have 
open  in  missionary  enterprise  free  channels  for  inter¬ 
denominational  and  international  and  interracial  ser¬ 
vice.  We  need  these  to-day,  not  to  be  abridged,  but 
to  be  extended. 

Not  only  do  the  conditions  of  this  present  hour 
forbid  our  considering  for  one  moment  the  proposal 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


[Page  fifteen 


that  we  should  stop  our  missionary  task.  We  face 
conditions  that  issue  to  us,  in  the  languag^e  of  this 
theme,  a  larger  call.  And  it  is  not  only  a  larger  call  to 
world  love,  uttered  actually  and  tangibly  in  human 
lives,  to  which  we  are  called  now.  We  need  the  mis¬ 
sionary  undertaking  undiminished  because  of  the  hope 
that  it  embodies  and  to  which  it  steadfastly  adheres. 
These  are  dark  and  doubtful  days  for  many  of  us, 
when  many  a  man  whose  Christian  faith  has  not 
wavered  begins  to  wonder  whether  after  all  the  dream 
ever  can  come  true.  All  around  us  these  coming 
months,  as  the  shadows  darken  and  those  come  not 
back  to  us  who  went  out  from  us — all  the  more  in 
those  days  will  the  heavy  doubts  arise.  We  need  to 
hold  fast  to  an  undertaking  that  tenaciously  grasps  the 
world  hope,  the  confidence  that  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
to  be  in  all  the  world,  that  can  sing  as  some  of  the  lads 
on  the  Espagne  were  singing  as  they  sailed :  “My 
anchor  holds.  It  holds.  My  anchor  holds.” 

The  function  of  the  Christian  church  is  a  double 
one.  The  Church  is  a  witness  to  possibilities  that 
lie  beyond  the  facts.  The  Church  never  was  meant  to 
be  the  mere  guaranty  of  what  has  become  established. 
That  has  been  its  shame  in  past  days.  It  has  been 
thought  of  only  as  a  religious  sanction  of  the  status 
quo.  The  real  business  of  the  Christian  church  has 
been  to  witness  to  the  possibilities  that  were  not  yet 
seen,  that  lay  invisible  far  beyond,  that  were  them¬ 
selves  a  contradiction  of  the  existing  facts.  The  Chris¬ 
tian  church  is  also  the  power  by  which  these  possibili- 


Page  sixteen] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


ties  are  to  be  made  facts,  and  all  facts  contradictory  to 
them  to  be  denied  and  overridden  and  done  away. 
Both  as  witness  and  as  power  the  church  needs  the 
breadth  and  boldness  of  the  missionary  hopes.  We 
need  to  hold  fast  on  the  world  plane  to  an  undertaking 
that  will  not  let  go  the  idea  of  a  world  brotherhood, 
that  will  work  for  that,  that  even  in  these  days  when 
mankind  is  rent  asunder,  will  ignore  the  chasm  and 
will  send  out  its  representatives  across  the  whole 
world,  speaking  its  message  of  a  world  love  and  hold¬ 
ing  fast  to  its  dream  of  a  world  hope. 

I  come  back  in  closing  to  the  one  note  on  w^hich,  as 
I  conceive,  the  theme  was  intended  to  lay  the  empha¬ 
sis — the  war  and  the  nation’s  larger  call.  Let  us  not 
yield  to  any  influences  that  would  make  us  smaller 
men  to-day  than  we  were  five  years  ago,  nor  yield  to 
any  ideals  or  pressures  that  would  contract  our  vision 
or  narrow  the  field  or  strangle  the  forces  of  our  minis¬ 
try.  This  is  the  day  for  men  to  look  out  more  widely 
over  the  world  and  to  be  more  daring  and  courageous 
in  their  hopes  and  faiths,  for  men  to  make  sacrifices 
broader  and  more  courageous,  more  ample  than  they 
ever  have  made  before,  for  them  to  think  not  in  terms 
of  one  nation’s  relationship  to  another  nation  only,  but 
in  the  wide  terms  of  the  interrelations  of  all  men.  It 
is  a  day  when  world  measurements  should  be  laid 
down  upon  all  our  thoughts. 

They  should  be  laid  upon  our  thoughts  of  penitence 
and  foregiveness.  I  read  last  evening  the  speech  of 
Donald  McLean,  Deputy  Chairman  of  Committees  of 


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[Page  seventeen 


the  House  of  Commons,  made  only  a  few  weeks  ago  in 
London.  “Too  much  blame,”  said  he,  “too  much  re¬ 
sponsibility,  I  should  say,  is  thrown  by  us  on  cir¬ 
cumstances.  When  the  prodigal  son  came  home 
again,  he  did  not  greet  his  father  with  a  long  recital  of 
temptations  to  which  he  had  been  subjected,”  or  of  the 
conditions  that  forced  him  into  what  he  had  done.  “His 
message  was,  ‘Father,  I  have  sinned.’  In  this  great 
struggle  in  which  we  are  engaged,  we  shall  not  lessen 
the  burden  of  our  national  responsibility  for  our  sins 
by  dwelling  upon  the  iniquities  of  Germany.  We  have 
to  bear  the  burden  of  our  own  sins.”  We  need  this 
larger  outlook  to-day  to  give  us  world  thoughts  of 
penitence  and  forgiveness. 

We  need  it,  because  it  must  be  a  world  scale  of 
sacrifice  that  shall  dominate  our  life  and  the  life  of 
the  church  now.  We  betray  our  mission  and  fail  God 
if  we  shrink  into  a  nationalistic  sect  that  can  conceive 
only  of  our  own  national  functions,  unless  those 
include  the  whole  human  brotherhood  and  the  duty  of 
speaking  and  thinking  and  living  by  the  law  of  a  world 
love. 

We  need  to  write  that  word  “wider”  on  all  our 
prayer  and  service,  shrinking  back,  as  from  the  voice 
of  antichrist,  from  whatever  shall  suggest  to  us  any 
abridgement  or  curtailment  or  withholding  of  the  liv¬ 
ing,  saving,  creating  ministries  of  Christ  at  home  and 
abroad.  To  these  the  world  and  God’s  voice  in  the 
world  are  calling  us  to-day. 


Page  eighteen] 


Larger  Call  to  World  Evangelism 


The  phrases  of  John  Milton’s  great  prayer  I  have 
read  over  and  over  again  these  last  few  days: 

‘'The  times  and  seasons  pass  along  under  thy  feet, 
to  go  and  come  at  thy  bidding,  and  as  thou  didst 
dignify  our  fathers’  days  with  many  revelations,  above 
all  their  foregoing  ages  since  thou  tookest  the  flesh,  so 
thou  canst  vouchsafe  to  us,  though  unworthy,  as  large 
a  portion  of  thy  spirit  as  thou  pleasest,  for  who  shall 
prejudice  thy  all-governing  will,  seeing  the  power  of 
thy  grace  is  not  passed  away  with  the  primitive  times, 
as  fond  and  faithless  men  imagine,  but  thy  kingdom  is 
now  at  hand  and  thou  standing  at  the  door.  Come 
forth  out  of  thy  chamber,  O  Prince  of  all  the  kings  of 
the  earth.  Put  on  the  robes  of  thy  imperial  majesty. 
Take  up  that  unlimited  scepter  which  thy  almighty 
Father  hath  bequeathed  thee,  for  now  the  voice  of  thy 
bride  calls  thee  and  all  creatures  sigh  to  be  renewed.” 

In  that  spirit,  and  in  that  enlarged  and  ample  faith, 
if  the  church  will  but  open  her  life  unhindered  to  the 
infinite  God,  may  it  not  be  that  he  could  even  now 
work  through  her,  in  us,  the  miracle  of  righteousness 
and  of  peace? 


